


Running a Half-Cryptonomicom

by Ariana (ariana_paris)



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Episode s06e02: Blood Money, F/M, Humor, Racist Language, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariana_paris/pseuds/Ariana
Summary: Set during 6x02. Monica is upset about something and Gilfoyle's ego is slightly bruised.
Relationships: Bertram Gilfoyle/Monica Hall
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Running a Half-Cryptonomicom

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know they haven't so much as looked at each other so far in season 6. But have some crack that pretends they have.

“Are you still seeing Tara?”

Gilfoyle looks at the door he's still holding open and then at the irate willowy woman who has just wafted through it in a cloud of smoke.

“The fuck?” he asks, because he was kind of in the middle of something and forgot all about getting laid, and sure as hell didn't expect his lay to arrive at his condo early and start talking about his ex.

“Thi Minh from Accounting said Mike from HR said he overheard Dinesh telling Tracy that your “girlfriend”—” she curls her neutrally-painted nails in the air like little short claws “—_has a snake_.”

“The fuck?” repeats Gilfoyle as he closes the door, because there's really no more eloquent way to express his reaction to this outburst.

Monica scowls at him. “Are you still fucking seeing Tara?”

“Fucking or seeing her? Because I was seeing her a lot more than I was fucking her even when I was fucking her. And anyway, you know she has a snake. You saw the video where she—”

Monica wrinkles her nose in that way that kind of makes her look like she's going to cast a spell as if she really is a fucking witch like Jian-Yang used to say. She waves her free hand to stop him.

“Yes, yes, I remember,” she says impatiently. “If you're not seeing her, why the fuck does Dinesh think she's still your girlfriend?”

“Because I'm not on fucking Facebook telling everyone my fucking relationship status,” he tells her, folding his arms. “Why are we having this conversation?”

“Oh my God, now I'm getting the arms!” grumbles Monica, rolling her eyes. 

She throws up her hands and a plume of smoke from her cigarette traces a fat tarry line in the air. This appears to remind her of its existence, because she takes a long drag from it before throwing herself down onto Gilfoyle’s fake leather sofa. Half a dozen fluffy Pokemon and tech company mascots bounce like the worst pogo dance since the Toronto cellars of his youth.

He sits down beside her and thinks there's probably something about her behavior that should be telling him something, but fuck if he can work out what it is. 

“So you're not still seeing Tara?” she asks with a puff of smoke.

“No, I am not,” he says, because although he's strongly tempted to fuck _with_ her, he thinks just telling her the truth is more likely to get him laid sometime tonight.

“So Dinesh is just confused? Tara is definitely not your girlfriend?”

He schools his features into the neutral, superior expression he adopts when his brain is frantically trying to work out what the fucking fuck is happening in this fucking real world where shit just happens at random instead of in the nice predictable way that computers work. He's already said he isn't seeing Tara. He dumped Tara after they first hooked up, because Monica said she wasn't into “poly shit” and he decided it would be nice to have a girlfriend who lived in the same city for a change, with the added bonus that he could stare at her pretty much anytime in the office—at least until she told him to stop fucking staring because he looked like a harassment case waiting to happen. Monica already knows he dumped Tara. Why the fuck does she need him to say it again now?

He's tempted not to reply just because she's being annoying, but again, the girlfriend in the same city thing is very convenient, and he does want to have sex again. Tonight would be quite nice, after the day he’s had.

“Tara is definitely not my girlfriend,” he says, idly wondering if cybersex will ever get anywhere near as good as the real thing some day so everyone can avoid this kind of tedious relationship talk. He looks at her smoking her cigarette again and finally notices the thing that he thought he should be noticing earlier. “Wait. Is something else bothering you?”

She stares at him, wide-eyed. “What? No, why would something be bothering me? I'm not bothered by anything! Not me. Nothing going on.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “That's a lie.”

Gilfoyle has noticed that people find him saying that unsettling, and also that as a general rule, it's true, because people lie all the time. So sometimes, he says it just so they'll think he's really smart and clever at reading people. And he knows Monica is fucking him because he's smart and clever—it sure as fuck isn't for his good looks and charm—so he wants to keep up that illusion.

“Okay. But it’s just—” she waves her cigarette, now two drags away from a butt. “A financial thing. I can’t really talk about it.”

He’s immediately glad that she can’t talk about it. Monica is hot as hell and incredible in the sack, but he could quite easily fall asleep when she starts on how to grow capital and what kind of investments she’s recommended for Pied Pier and that time she got a 3% yield on a 4% investment or whatever the fuck it was she tried to tell him about on their first date. Cryptocurrency aside, Gilfoyle is only interested in money when it’s flowing into his bank account. And even then, it’s just a number he can use to measure his worth compared to other people, and only because actually measuring dick length and girth isn’t something you’re supposed to and he’s not sure he’d win that contest with anyone important anyway. 

He decides to change the subject to something that’s a lot more interesting to him. 

“Dragon Lady was on my case all day,” he complains.

Monica looks faintly disgusted. “Did you just call our Chinese-American head of HR, ‘Dragon Lady?’”

“She made me do all my work in one day!” Gilfoyle is sure that if he lists all the mean things Tracy did, Monica will sympathize and not blame him for calling her names. “And she said I was ‘That Guy’ and I should have direct reports. And—and she said I only read half of Cryptonomicon!”

“You did only read half of Cryptonomicon,” points out Monica. “It’s been on your bedside table with the bookmark in the same place since we started hooking up. And yes, you totally are That Guy. I’ve dated many of That Guy and even married one once, and you are _totally_ That Guy.”

Gilfoyle pouts and frowns at the screen on his laptop. Monica looks at it with mixed curiosity and apprehension.

“Do I want to know what you’re doing?” she asks.

“Now Jared’s gone, she’s making me write the blog post for the site,” says Gilfoyle plaintively. “She gave me a choice between ‘Leadership’ and ‘An Inspiring Colleague,’ so I'm thinking I could write about Dinesh. You know, how pathetic he is and what crappy code he writes, and how he inspires me to never let him touch any fucking project I work on. Did I tell you about how he thought the AI me was the real me?”

“Easy mistake to make,” grumbles Monica.

“So I thought I could get the AI to write the blog post, but it's optimized to respond to interactions with a human or another AI and produce short, contextual responses rather than a whole coherent post. So I'll have to fork the project and rewrite the interference engine to take topics—”

“Okay, one: I don't give a fuck about your AI, except if you ever use it on me, you're not fucking touching this ever again.” She points at her skirt, but he gets her meaning. “Two: the blog posts are like, what, 3 or 400 words? You do realize it would be quicker to just write the damn thing instead of writing fucking code to fix all your fucking problems!”

Gilfoyle doesn't know what to say to that, so he narrows his eyes again and folds his arms.

“And you can stop fucking sulking right now!" she adds as she stubs out what's left of her cigarette in the ashtray on his coffee table.

She stares into space and thinks about whatever it is that she’s bothered about. He stares into space and wonders if he could just write the blog post himself and then pretend that the AI wrote it so everyone will think he’s cool and clever. Making sure people think he’s cool and clever is basically the most important thing in his life. That and tinkering with computers, of course. And maybe having sex sometimes.

With that thought in mind, he thinks he can probably write the blog in the morning while he’s procrastinating on the next few tickets at work, and puts his arm around Monica. She leans against him with a heavy sigh, then snuggles up closer. 

Gilfoyle contentedly breathes in the fruity and tobacco-y scent of her hair. Safe out of her line of sight, he allows himself a wide, goofy grin and thinks he might be getting laid tonight.


End file.
